The
fall was accompanied by speculation Soriot is planning to launch a cash
bid for US biopharmaceutical group Amarin, whose shares moved against
the trend on Wall Street yesterday with an early gain to $11.61.

AstraZeneca,
along with other larger pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, Pfizer,
Abbott and Eli Lilly, would apparently love to get their hands on
Amarin for Vascepa, a prescription medicine which helps with the
treatment for cardiovascular disease. It is the group’s first FDA
approval product.

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US analysts are of the opinion that Amarin’s days of independence are numbered.

They
reckon that Amarin now stands at the crossroads and appears to be
waiting for a large pharmaceutical company, with a substantial
cardiovascular or diabetes sales force, to come and swallow it whole.

William
Tanner, analyst at Lazard Capital Markets, currently has a target price
of $26 on Amarin as has Canaccord Genuity’s Ritu Baral. What does that
tell you?

The Footsie
closed under the weather at 5,797.91, down 85, amid continuing concerns
about Spain after credit rating agency Moody’s cut five Spanish regions
to junk status. Wall Street later made matters much worse by falling
230 points in early trading in sympathy with disappointing earnings from
multinationals, Du Pont, 3M, United Technologies and Xerox.

Data information group Experian
resisted the malaise, rising 40p to 1087p after acquiring the
outstanding minority in Serasa, the credit bureau and business
information provider in Brazil. Shore Capital upgraded its earnings
forecast on news of the deal and said that with the rise in importance
of data services to the global economy, and strong growth prospects in
the developing world, it retained its buy recommendation.

Lloyds Banking Group,
in which the UK tax-payer owns 41 per cent, eased 0.52p to 40.29p on an
Investec sell recommendation. The broker pointed out that Dutch house
prices have fallen in 12 of the past 14 months, declining 9 per cent
over that period. Lloyds has a £5.8bn exposure to the market and it sees
its Dutch exposure as a drag on its (generally improving) bad debt
story. Its target price is 36p.

Daily Mirror and The People publisher Trinity Mirror slumped
7.25p or 10 per cent to 64.5p following news that both tabloid newspapers have
been drawn into the wave of phone-hacking scandals. Former England
football boss Sven Goran Erikson is one of four alleged victims
intending to sue the newspapers.

Spread betting group London Capital fell
11.5p to a 52-week low of 50.5p after warning that because of
suppressed trading volumes in the third-quarter and low market
volatility, revenues will be significantly below last year.

Sanderson Group,
the software and IT services business, eased 1.5p to 46.5p despite
saying trading results for the year to end-September 2012 were slightly
ahead of market expectations. Its cash pile has risen to £4m.

Shrugging off news that national economic reforms in India could have an impact on earnings, OPG Power,
which operates power stations in the country, firmed 0.75p to 55.5p.
The Indian government has announced debt restructuring assistance to
State Electricity Boards, subject to them undertaking reforms on tariff
and transmission losses.

Shares of Probability,
a mobile gambling specialist, jumped 3.5p to 78.5p after reporting a
35 per cent leap in net gaming revenues to £2.3m for the three months to
end-September 2012. LadyLuck’s iPhone App has been downloaded over
40,000 times since being introduced in June 2012, while its Long John
Silver slot game for iOS and Android devices became the quickest game to
achieve £1m of total bets, in under two weeks.

Amid
speculation it is looking to find a buyer for its stake in Red Leaf
Resources, oil shale exploration and development company TomCo Energy
touched 1.395p before closing 0.02p up at 1.32p. The company said that
it had commenced measures to secure the necessary approvals and permits
required for commercial production at its Holliday Block in Utah.

Buyers chased eServGlobal 2.88p
or 25 per cent higher to 14.12p after the global telecoms software
vendor specialising in mobile money announced that mobile phone giant
Vodafone has selected the HomeSend mobile remittance hub, which uses the
company’s technology, to accelerate its international mobile money
transfer service. The year’s peak was 36.9p.